So I saw this meme, and it struck me as being so true.
I mean, I thought it was easy to get Mexican food in California--or Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico... Well, you get the picture. But I think I might have been influenced a little too much by having grown up in New Jersey at a time when you could easily find Cuban food, but the ONLY Mexican food to be had was at the VERY occasional Taco Bell. But Texas is in another league entirely. And, yes, the Mexican food here is overwhelmingly Tex-Mex, but there are tacos EVERYWHERE. Restaurants, food trucks, truck stops, convenience stores and gas stations.
Discussing Texas small towns recently, I found myself saying, "If there isn't a minimum of six taco trucks there, does it even count as a town?"
I stand by that.
Christmas Angel is set in Texas and even though the DiCecco family's heritage is Italian the Texas influence is STRONG. And the family's matriarch, Connie DiCecco, LOVES to cook for her family. Here's breakfast at the DiCecco's the morning after their prodigal son-in-law returns...
My emotions are all over the place when I walk into the kitchen and find that most of the family are there ahead of me, everybody gathered around the table, eating breakfast—including my father, who rarely leaves his recliner anymore. It’s great seeing him up and about, don’t get me wrong, but I sure hope Jake’s right about the improvement being permanent. Because he doesn’t need another disappointment in that area. None of us do.
Maggie and Dennis are also here—unusual, but not unheard of—along with Josie, their youngest. When I don’t see their two older kids, or Tim either, I assume they’re all at school and breathe a small prayer of relief.
It would have been an even bigger relief if Jake wasn’t here, but he is, of course. Sat right next to my dad, laughing and smiling, not a care in the world. Just like the clock’s not ticking. Just like he won’t be leaving soon—one way or another.
Just like it’s not the last time, the last Christmas, we’ll all be together…
I white knuckle the counter, swaying on my feet, hoping no one will notice. I’m so close to spewing that when my mom, busy at the stove, nods toward the table and urges me to, “Sit down, Tony! Have some breakfast.” It’s all I can do not to retch. And that’s before my gaze follows hers. I glance at the table and blink in surprise. What fresh hell is this?
The table is already fully loaded. I see eggs, toast, bacon, potatoes, ham—enough of each to feed a small city. And she’s still not done?
I glance back toward the stove, that six-burner monster she’s so proud of, to verify what I already know. Yes, indeed every one of those burners is currently in use. She’s cooking migas from the looks of it. And pancakes. And more eggs. And, unless I miss my guess, those two pots in the back are filled with sausage gravy and grits.
Now d’you see what I meant the other night about the fatted calf? The excess actually helps me, in a weird way. It swings my emotions from devastated to irritated—which is always so much easier to deal with.
“Tony,” my mom urges again. “Breakfast!”
“No time, Mama,” I tell her. “I’m running late.” I take a couple of kolache from the freezer, load ’em on a plate, and shove them in the microwave, ignoring the way my mother clucks her tongue and shakes her head as she returns her attention to her pots and pans.
You might think kolache is an odd choice given my intestinal distress, but I know for a fact they work magic on hangovers. With any luck, they’ll do the same now.
My sister, meanwhile, has popped up from the table to check on something in the oven. She arches an eyebrow at me and asks, “Seriously? You’d choose something frozen reheated, and mass-produced—and that you could have any day, I might add—over all of this?”
“No time,” I repeat as I take my favorite stainless steel travel mug from the cabinet and reach for the coffee pot. No time to sit, no time to chat, no time to explain the unexplainable, the fucking mystery in our midst. No time to laugh along at Jake’s lame jokes like everyone else is doing. Definitely no time to eat my freaking heart out with want for a man who… Nope. Not going there.
No. Freaking. Time. That’s my story and I’m damn well sticking to it.
Maggie rolls her eyes at the incomprehensibility of brothers then turns to her husband to say, “Hey, babe. Why don’t you pass Josie over to her Uncle Jake and come here and give me a hand with these trays.”
Uncle. Jake. Sweet Mother of Pearl. I know I should have been expecting that. And yet, somehow, I wasn’t. The name lands on my nerves, firing them up like a rash of Texas bull nettles. Which, if you don’t know, is one of the top three most painful encounters you can have in Texas, the others being scorpions and fire ants.
It’s funny, when you think about it. I used to love how comfortable Jake was with my family, how easily he fit in, how much they all loved him. Now, I hate it. All I can think of is the hurt and confusion he’s gonna leave in his wake, the impossible questions that I’ll be stuck trying to answer. The tears in my mom’s eyes. The quiet suffering in my dad’s. Not to mention my own unending pain.
I watch him cradle the baby in his big hands, laughing when she reaches out and grabs his hairy face. An ache lodges in my heart, tightening my chest until I can barely breathe.
And the fact that my niece can also touch him, while I still can’t? That tips my rollercoaster emotions even further into rage. From pain to anger to seething frustration. To futile, desperate desire, the naked need to reclaim what I had, what I can’t get back. What I chose to walk away from.
The fact that I made the right choice, that I’d do it again now, that I have never…or at least, not too often…regretted it matters not one little bit.
I want him. I can’t have him. It’s my own fault—but it’s his fault, too.
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